I’d also like to call this post…..almost there day! Today was a busy day….and I was up at 6 on my own with the little ones ready to go. We had the electrician, tiler, fridge delivered, plumber in at the end of the day and then Michael the lovely kitchen guy came to do his little inspection.

I was asked this afternoon is it what I imagined and I have to say that it is better. I always knew this kitchen was going to be bigger than the last one. I had more space to play and no building work meant a bit more budget too.

Today it really all came together and with a bit of painting, a good clean, the plumbing to the fridge and then we are really done.

oh yes and the oven finally found a home! I actually think it needs to come forward a smidge but it’s so great to see it in a space and not in the middle of the kitchen and on a piece of foam. Oh the oven was a big source of worry in this kitchen but I always knew it would be worth it.

More photos to come over the weekend and oh the joy of patching the ceiling and painting for retro daddy.

and yes there will also be a complete ‘everything you wanted to know about my kitchen post’ coming up too! And plenty of little trips from me into the kitchen to admire it some more. And do I have the best kitchen guy or what? Look what is in my fridge for the weekend……………………………

Thank you Michael🙂

Well it might only be day 12 on the blog but it feels like a lot longer when you’re living through it. And I’ve been a bit quiet but trust me there has been plenty going on behind the scenes….we’ve done a school open day, retro daddy has been away for work then came home then flew out again (I’m exhausted!), emerson decided to swallow some apple scented shower gel this morning that required a call to the poisons information centre, I’m half way through knitting a baby kina, I keep falling asleep getting the kids to bed each night, I’ve been running up and down the stairs to the kitchen and just trying to keep on top of everything.

Thankfully there has been some action in the kitchen with today being caesarstone delivery day. Just one day out but I didn’t mind at all. Everything kind of stops and waits for the caesarstone to be installed and then everyone finishes off their jobs and the job is finished.

The colour is snow, exactly what I put in my last kitchen and I love it. It keeps the kitchen simple and classic and my only issue with snow is that you can see streaks and need a bottle of windex under your sink next to the gumption the wonder cleaner that will get anything (and I mean anything) off your caesarstone.

It makes the kitchen look perfect. The oven was worrying me last night but I know that I need to stop worrying about the oven and have faith that it will all work out and look amazing and a few of the tradespeople will hopefully be sliding that baby into place tomorrow.

Until then…………………….I hope you enjoy these latest photos. It finally is starting to feel real and that I will actually be cooking in this space. And I love this photo before I whisked her out of the room and closed the door.

I love being able to share a bit of progress with you all……..and just so that you know, you are usually getting to see the pictures and how it’s looking before retro daddy does. So there you go. Life is so busy at the moment so it’s one less thing to worry about when I have a blog post for the day. Today it was the plasterer’s turn to pop in for a visit and work some magic.

In our last kitchen we just had a gap above our cabinetry but wow this has made a difference having a cornice put in around top. I just love how it really finishes off the cabinets.  Keira makes her confirmation tomorrow and it would have been so fabulous to have lunch in the kitchen but we can show off the progress and just enjoy it.

We had a slight drama with the caesarstone but thankfully Snow will be back in stock next week and the schedule is out by a day but what is a day when you get your first colour choice so we’re all good and can’t wait to share more photos with you next week.

oh and hopefully I can rescue elodie from the room….lots of cupboards to open and close. Emerson loves to do the same too and there are great acoustics in there too.

Well now we get to the good stuff……..the cabinets are in and cupboard handles are on. This is much more exciting than looking at the kitchen after a coat of paint. Now I was going to be a bit mean and drag it out with day 9 of just cabinets but here we have both day 9 and 10 progress shots in the one post. It’s also kind of nice to see the morning sunlight in the kitchen for the day 9 shots and the late afternoon sun coming in after 6pm for the day 10 shots.

I was shooed out of the kitchen until the mantle was just right. It really is just what I wanted….something a little traditional but not too traditional or over the top. I wanted to really show off the oven space and I think it adds a nice little classic touch.

Can I just say that going from all brown and yellow to shades of white and grey has made the room brighter and also bigger. It’s just a gorgeous gorgeous space and I can’t wait to get in there………..

the caesarstone was measured at 4.30pm where I was advised that they are all out of snow. Come on people, why are you all using Snow….that’s my colour. And there really isn’t something close to it in the caesarstone so looks I might be doing another stone brand in a similar shade to snow to get the right look. Thank goodness!

So now we’ll sit around and wait for the stone to arrive and then it will be a flurry of activity to get everything finished and get cooking!!!!

More to come next week………………………..

We have cupboard handles! Now you can go to Bunnings or the local hardware store and select cupboard handles or you can have your heart set on a particular type of cupboard handle and search and search and then end up at the store where you bought them for the last kitchen renovation.  And that is what I did. They aren’t the cheapest of the handles out there but they are exactly what I wanted and something as small as the cupboard handle that you use can have a big difference in your kitchen (new or old!).

I probably saw these a few years ago in a home beautiful magazine………………and I knew I had to have them as they were totally hamptons/american style. I couldn’t find them last time and wasn’t sure that I wanted different handles for drawers and cupboards. But I am happy to say that I have them here and ready to go for installation this week. You can find them here and here at Mother of Pearl & Sons Trading who have a store in Sydney and also Melbourne. Another great place for handles and kitchen/renovation supplies which I like to use is Restoration Online.

I can’t wait to share more with you. There will be lots of action with the installation of cupboards and then the caesarstone gets measured and then it gets really quiet for a week just hanging out waiting for the caesarstone to arrive and then it gets really busy again with all the trades and people coming in to finish off their jobs.

OK so I know that it’s been a little bit quiet around here with the kitchen photos but we’ve been waiting for the kitchen cabinets to arrive before installation next tuesday. Retro daddy has been away for business (and looks like he’ll be doing lots more of that – insert sad face) so there has been no painting, that fun is saved up for this weekend. And he’ll be painting the skirtings and trims around the cabinets.

Those big long doors are for my double pantries. Yes that’s right, pantries not pantry. I’ve managed to put 3 doubles into this kitchen as I really needed more storage after doing our last kitchen. With one spare wall gracing our kitchen I decided to put the fridge and 2 pantries along it. And then at the other end of the kitchen is another pantry. I’ll probably use the two next to the fridge for food and the other one for platters, appliances and big stuff.

I thought we had drama with the kitchen cabinets, when they arrived they appeared to be glossy not a matte finish but turns out that was the just the full sun in the morning and actually by the  afternoon light they were looking like our last kitchen.  Those 3 little cupboards there are to go above the oven with a small/modest/not too over the top mantle which will have the rangehood hidden underneath. I wanted something a little bit different but not too traditional that it might be off putting if/when we sell the house.

And we have a dishwasher……………..very exciting. 18 months of washing dishes by hand is about to come to an end. I went with the Samsung as it had great reviews, an adjustable top tray and was priced middle of the range. I did start out looking at the basic dishwasher models but they all seemed to come with criticisms of glasses falling over and a few problems like that so worked up a bit in price without going over $900. I’ll let you know what I think about it.

We’ve had a few dramas with the oven but nothing an email to the owner of the business didn’t sort out and we’re all good. The oven was finally delivered and I’m going to put all the drama behind us. I was like a kid at Christmas waiting for it to arrive and I always knew that it would be worth it. The oven is an ESSE EC2i which is an electric range cooker with an induction cooktop. The induction top is under some big stainless steel hob covers which give it a traditional look. It is a big investment, I won’t lie and I’ll devote a post to the oven once it’s in and running but once I started looking into the range cookers there was no turning back.

I do think that when ordering a big heavy cooker like this one that you factor in ahead of time and ask those important questions about delivery. How will it arrive, who will bring it into the house and move it into place and ask all of those questions at the time you order and then confirm those details again. Unfortunately installation is not an option if you live interstate so at the moment the oven is on some foam and retro daddy is going to find a trolley to help get it into position next week with the tradespeople. But boy it is beautiful.

And that my friends, was day 7……………………

Paint! It’s been all about the painting. Retro daddy has been in there painting up a storm with the Dulux Vanilla Quake half strength on the walls. He hasn’t done windows or trims yet but I think you’ll agree that it makes a huge difference. Some of my readers who have been here a while will know that this paint is my all time favourite. It’s a pale grey and just looks lovely and is throughout all of the living areas of my house.

A lovely reader asked about the lights. No we won’t be keeping the lights. I’ve got 3 glass bell shaped pendants to go over the island (I might just use 2 depending on how it looks once the kitchen is in) and about 8 downlights to light up the room.

A bit of a quiet week with things just arriving this week and hopefully the trims will get painted too.

It’s been all about the tiles for the past few days. Jason has been the loveliest tiler and great to have a chat to but not too much…..I’ve been keeping the kids away from the kitchen and hallway so he could do his work. And I’d keep popping my head in to ohh and ahh. It has really started to lighten up the room.

I’m actually so glad I didn’t go with the dark floorboards because this room was always so dark with all of that dark brown 70’s kitchen and the brown walls. Now with these light tiles on the floor and the brown kitchen out…..it’s so light and bright. And all night I’ve been stopping to admire the floors.

These are a porcelain tile from Amber Tiles. I went in there looking for Travertine tiles but was scared off by the staining (I have heard a few stories even after they have been sealed) so I settled on the porcelain and they are just gorgeous. Yes there is the chip factor (think something dropping on them not the potato variety) but I’m really happy. Retro daddy has been advised to seal up the grout which is a buff colour to match the tiles but so far so good.

Retro daddy is painting as I type out this blog post and he will spend Sunday painting and the coming week will see the appliances arrive (I ordered through Appliances Online who seemed to have the best prices AND you can just pay on delivery which is great for cashflow) and the kitchen cabinets arrive Friday (woohoo!). I should mention that I’m not allowed to assist in painting and haven’t been allowed to since the ‘butt swiping’ incident of 2006. We had just moved into our first house and I managed to take some paint with me and my big pregnant butt while I was trying to help out retro daddy.

Unfortunately there is a slight drama with the oven which is somewhere on a ship out at sea and isn’t due to arrive into port until mid October. This is not good news as all the trades are due to be finished by the 18th so they’ve made it a priority when it comes in but I really hope it arrives before the 18th because that really is the star of the show in this kitchen. A big black ESSE cooker that I decided to order in Australia so I didn’t have to have it shipped over from England….ahem……It will all be worth it, I know it will and the 3 year warranty is a big plus.

Watch this space…………..

OK well day 2 started with the tiler arriving and realising that he didn’t have the correct product to do our floors. Totally my fault because I had told them we thought it was a cement floor but didn’t realise it would be floorboards under there. So he went off and did another job and retro daddy had the joy of ripping out the existing flooring and prepping the room for painting. And anytime he wanted to complain about the job I did remind him that he wanted to paint himself to save money. And it is a big saving to do the painting yourself.

The electrician came out and we’ve got 3 double power points going where my bench space is, one in a pantry for my microwave and some will go in the island for the dishwasher and also because I love popping my thermomix and kitchen on the island to cook.

On day 3 the tiler came back out and laid down a special product that kind of looks like cement and makes a nice surface to lay the tiles down. It was stinky but you’ve got to love closing the door to the kitchen and staying in another part of the house.

So let the tiling begin…………………………………